You Can't Make This Stuff Up

A local congressman here in Florida is working hard to improve the quality of life in our fair state, and I must say I’m impressed with his efforts.

You see, unlike most politicians this congressman has the uncanny ability to keep himself from getting sidetracked by trivial issues, issues like a public school system that ranks among the worst in the United States, the rise of violent crime (Orlando, for example, is on target to at least double last year’s murder rate and, according to Men’sHealth magazine, out of the top 12 most angry cities in the U.S., Florida owns five of those positions, Orlando coming in at number one), traffic congestion that’s turned our main thoroughfares into over-sized parking lots, teachers sleeping with students, drug abuse, and the list goes on. No, Mr. Congressman focuses on the most important problems contributing to the downfall of society, problems like restaurant bathrooms running out of toilet paper.

Yes, you read correctly. Of all the ills of society, Mr. Congressman believes being stranded on a toilet in a restaurant ranks as the most important one, and it needs to be rectified (I could’ve gone for a cheap laugh and wrote “rectal-fied” but that would’ve been crass). He’s so passionate about this problem, he’s introduced a bill in congress to make it illegal for restaurants to run out of toilet paper. Nice to see our taxes at work, isn’t it?

If this piece of legislation becomes law, just how will it be enforced? Will the Florida legislature create a new division of law enforcement? The Paper Patrol perhaps?

Imagine being locked in a jail cell as a repeat offender of this new law and being asked by murderers, gang bangers, drug dealers, etc, what you did to end up behind bars. That would be an interesting conversation to say the least.

“What ya in here for, bud?” one cell mate will ask as he adds, “I murdered a couple of people, ‘cause I didn’t like the way they was lookin’ at me.”

“Yeah,” another inmate will chime in, “I’m in for armed robbery; beat a security guard almost to death. So what put ya here?”

“Um, I forgot to refill the toilet paper dispenser at the restaurant where I work. But when I get out of here I’m moving up to tearing off mattress tags!” Yeah, that’ll make the inmates think twice before messing with you.

Before we leave the subject of Florida, I have to mention a couple of billboards I saw as I entered and left the Miami International Airport.

You see, in an effort to ease traffic congestion, a whole new infrastructure of roads leading into, around, and out of the airport are being built. As is the case with most of our main thoroughfares in Florida, these new roads will be toll roads.

Anyway, on these billboards is written, “Toll booths coming soon!” Well break out the chips and dip and we’ll have us a celebration. Like, we’re supposed to be excited about this? Oh yeah, I can’t count the times I’ve been driving down a toll-free road and thought to myself, “Gosh, I sure wish the powers that be would put a toll booth here so I could gladly give them more of my hard-earned money.”

They can spin it, perfume it, sugar-coat it, do whatever they want to it in an attempt to placate our resentment of more toll booths to gouge our wallets, but skunk cabbage by any other name is still skunk cabbage, and it still stinks.

And speaking of stink, another you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up story happened in the “friendly skies.” It seems a commercial airliner was forced to make an emergency landing. Why? Flatulence. That’s right, flatulence. An American Airlines flight, headed to Dallas, Texas from Washington, D.C. had to make an unscheduled landing in Nashville, Tennessee because a woman sneezed in her pants.

Evidently, sometime into the flight, passengers began complaining of a nauseating odor. In fact, the smell was so repugnant a passenger and a flight attendant became physically ill.

So, the pilot made an emergency landing in Nashville. On the ground, the passengers were evacuated from the plane and put through a security search, the luggage hold of the plane was emptied, the luggage examined, and a team of canines were brought in to sniff out the source of the stench, which they did.

Those highly prized scent detectors lead their handlers to a seat in the plane where the remains of a few burnt paper matches lie. From there, all authorities had to do was look on the passenger manifest to see who was sitting in said seat.

It turned out that the person belonging to that seat was an elderly woman, an elderly woman with a medical condition, a medical condition that gives the poor lady an excessive amount of uncontrollable rotten-smelling flatulence, as if there’s any other kind.

Since passengers are allowed to bring four books of paper matches onboard with them this lady did just that, and in an effort to mask the unpleasant aroma of her anal backfire, she lighted a few. Thankfully, the authorities were understanding and didn’t charge the lady with any crimes.
You know, it’s been said that truth is stranger than fiction. It is, and usually a whole lot funnier too.

Feeling a Little Abbreviated

In this rapid, fast-paced world we live in we’ve become an abbreviated society. It seems the more things we can abbreviate the better.

For instance, when my oldest son (who, by the way, is not a Jr.) was a teenager, I had difficulty pulling him away from the TV, mostly in the PM every Sun. and Mon., because he was psycho when it came to watching the NFL on NBC or ESPN. For him it didn’t matter if it was an AFC or an NFC team that was playing. He just loves the game.

And speaking of football, as a side note, at one time or another all three of my sons wanted to play, but I never could keep straight which son wanted to play what position. There’s QB, TB, HB, FB, TE, WR, and LB, just to name a few.

When the NFL season was over I still had a tough time pulling eldest son away from the TV because the NBA would be in full swing, and he enjoyed basketball as much as he did football. In fact, eldest son often watched two games at once. He accomplished this by pressing the PC button on the TV remote.

The TV is just one item in the house which is abbreviated. There’s also the A/C, which is set at a comfortable temp., to keep the house cool and comfy in the summer months.

All of us have vacuums in our homes. Is yours a dry vac or a wet vac? Perhaps you have a shop vac for your garage. Or some of you, I’m sure, have built-in vacs in your homes.

Other areas of our lives are abbreviated as well. Last Jun. I was rushed to the E.R. of our local hospital for what turned out to be a kinked intestine (see I Choose to Laugh). I was taken there in a Sonata, not a Chevy, GMC, or an Olds, and we didn’t exceed the allotted mph allowed by law. No sense in getting a ticket for speeding and having to appear before a J.P.

Now, while I was at the E.R. an RN gave me some meds (under Dr’s orders) in an I.V. for pain. I was a guest of the hospital for a few days, and when I was released someone besides me did the drive home, because I didn’t want to get into an accident and be charged with a DUI by a trooper of the FHP.

The business world is another area of life that is polluted with abbreviations. Right now I’m typing this on my PC, which is equipped with a CD Rom, but I don’t have a fax. If I had a fax I could send my writing to almost anywhere in the United States: KC, MO; SLC, UT; LA or SF, CA for example.

Many corps have a Pres, a VP, and a CEO. Often these positions in a co require the individual to travel long distances for work. If they fly they must decide on which airline to travel. AA, UA, CA, DAL, and FA are just five from which to choose.

Finally, life itself is broken down into abbreviations. Time is dated either B.C. or A.D., and the hr, min, and sec of one’s birth or death are usually recorded.

Yes, as time goes on we’re becoming more and more of an abbreviated society, so when I die just bury me in a T-shirt and jeans, put R.I.P. on my headstone, and I’ll be O.K.

The Torture Chamber

For many people, going to the dentist is akin to going to a torture chamber. Let’s face it, like in any profession; there are good dentists and, well, not so good ones. Unfortunately, the latter was the case when I lived in Branson, Missouri. I’d sooner clean all the public restrooms in Branson with my tongue then let him work on me again. In fact, he made me wonder if part of his education included a class called The Art of Tormenting Patients.

I’d lost a filling in a tooth and consequently needed a root canal and a crown, requiring a few visits to the only dentist in town, Dr. U. Wil Hurt.

The appointment began harmlessly enough. I’d settled into the dental chair and the doctor’s assistant chained a little napkin under my chin…and that’s when the anxiety began. I mean, what was that napkin for anyway, to absorb some expected profuse bleeding? The imagination can run wild when one becomes anxious.

Next, the assistant leaned my chair into a comfortable reclining position, and just as I began to relax and even drift off a little the doctor entered the room and shined a blinding interrogative like light directly into my face. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” I instinctively yelled. Then I turned red-faced as I realized I was in the dentist chair, not the police station being questioned.

Now the fun really began. The doc grabbed a Q-tip with some kind of numbing gunk on it and jammed it into my mouth, around the area of the bad tooth. Now, this Q-tip was no ordinary one. No, it was the size of a rhinoceros leg and had enough cotton on the tip of it to absorb the Missouri River. It dang near choked me to death, and as I gagged on it the dentist gave a look that convinced me he thought he had a real wimp on his hands. He was right.

Once the good doctor felt the Q-tip had been in my mouth long enough to do its job (two or three seconds maybe), he yanked the thing out of my mouth, reached behind him to a hidden tray, and grabbed a shot full of Novocain. From the feel of the needle he jammed into my gums, I was glad for that blinding light in my face—if I’d have seen the size of the shot needle I would have jumped out of that chair and heading for home in a nanosecond.

After ramming that horrible needle into several places in my mouth, making eyes water and my body tense up from the pain, he left the room to work on another patient, while waiting for my mouth to lose all feeling. You know how the dentist knows when your mouth is numb enough to work on? By the amount of drool running out of the corner of your mouth and dripping on the floor, as if you’re doing a poor imitation of Hooch, the constantly salivating French Mastiff in the movie Turner and Hooch.

Anyway, Masked, goggled, and gloved—you’d think I was an alien from Mars with all of the protective devices he and his assistant wore to work me—the dentist, elbow deep in my mouth, proceeded to tightly screw a clamp to my gums. Why? I don’t know, but you can trust me on this one no amount of numbing of the mouth will kill the excruciating pain of that clamp. Again my eyes watered up. Again the doctor gave me a look that let me know he believed I’m a certified wimp.

Once the clamp was secured, the dentist noticed I was gurgling and gasping for air, drowning in a mouthful of my own drool, so he had his assistant vacuum out the saliva with a little hose whose suction rivals any commercial vacuum cleaner. That thing could suck the brains of an elephant out through its trunk. I swear I could hear my tongue being ripped from my mouth. I’m surprised the rest of my fillings weren’t sucked out of my teeth buy that little beast.

Next, the dentist asked his assistant to hand him some weird named tool, which was nothing more than a dwarfed jackhammer, and he began drilling the bad tooth. Except for the stench of drilled tooth and the occasional swallowing of tooth chips, things started moving along smoothly. But that was short lived.

Sometime into the procedure, the drill slipped from my tooth and bore right into my tongue. I arched in my chair like a scalded cat and let out a howl that would put a coonhound to shame.
As Doctor Hurt looked at the pain showing in my once again watering eyes, he said, “best watch where yer puttin’ that tongue there, son.”

My mind filled with many expletives to call him, but he was up to his forearms in my mouth with a drill in his hand. I kept the expletives to myself.

Finally, at the end, and after making what seemed like a million impressions of my dead tooth, with the most gosh awful disgusting tasting stuff you could ever have in your mouth, I was released from the torture chamber.

On my way out, Miss dental assistant offered me the most dazzling piece of advice, overstating the obvious, “be sure not to chew on that side of your mouth for the next few weeks.
No problem. Once the Novocain wore off, my mouth was so sore from the needle poking and tongue drilling that it was a chore just to eat chicken soup.

After experiencing such an ordeal you might wonder if now I’m a bit reluctant to see the dentist. Well, let’s just say after that visit, if I’d had another tooth go bad, I planned on giving a pair of pliers to my ex wife and let her yank the thing out of my mouth.

Hey, it would’ve provided satisfaction in a couple of ways: it would’ve been less painful for me than Doctor Hurt’s torture chamber, and the ex-wife would’ve taken great pleasure in putting a hurting on me; a win, win situation if ever there was.

The Technologically Challenged

I'm among the many who are considered technologically challenged (we're the ones whose electronic devices constantly blink 12:00). Cell phones especially give me trouble.

Every time I buy a new one, I'm forever trying to figure out how to operate it. By the time I do figure it out it's time to upgrade to a newer model, and my techno troubles start anew. And those troubles have put me in some embarrassing situations.

Recently at church, during the middle of the clergy's talk, I received a call on my cell. I thought I'd set the ring tone on my phone to the silent mode for incoming calls. Wrong!

Now, having the ring tone on my phone go off during church would have been embarrassing enough had I set it to sound like the ring of a standard phone. Having the ring tone of my phone go off during church would have been embarrassing enough had I set it to play a catchy little tune. Having the ring tone of my phone go off during church would have been embarrassing enough had I set it to say some funny little phrase or quote. But nooooooo, I'd set the ring tone of my cell phone to sound like barking dogs, very loud barking dogs, barking dogs that to this day startle me when I receive a call!

I floundered about the pew, resembling something akin to a dog in desperate need of a good worming, in an effort to silence my phone, but it was to no avail.

So, red-faced, I scurried out to the foyer with my hand over my pone, trying to muffle the "WOOF, WOOF! WOOF, WOOF!" while the eyes of the congregation roamed the chapel in search of the idiot who'd brought his dogs to church. It's a wonder I'm still allowed to worship there.

Not figuring out how to set my ringer tone to silent is just one of the embarrassing situations I've been into thanks to being technologically challenged. You see, I have a feature on my phone that I'm sure I'd enjoy if I could just once successfully perform the operation to use it. This feature is the call-waiting feature, and it's been a trial for me.

Oh I've read the instruction manual, more than once, and it seems easy enough to do. But when I'm conversing with one person and call-waiting beeps, premature senility sets in, and in the process of trying to switch from one caller to another I disconnect both parties.

Once, when switching from one phone line to the other, I somehow accessed the conference-call menu, enabling three of us to chat with each other at once. Thankfully, there were no repercussions from that mistake. Of course, I now live in fear that when chatting with a lady friend another will beep in and I'll once again accidentally access the conference-call mode. Losing the affection of two ladies in one felled swoop would be so depressing.

But what really scares me is what I recently read concerning a cell phone that fits in your tooth like a filling. A cell phone in your tooth, are you kidding me?! Judging from my ineptness to work my current cell phone, I don't think a phone that fits into my tooth is for me.

On the other hand, if someone I'm mad at has one and it sits adjacent to a bad tooth, well I might be technologically challenged but I do know how to push the redial button.